Sounds promising…there hasn’t been a real Flying Tigers movie since, well, “Flying Tigers” with John Wayne in ’42.

You could play it straight…American volunteers helping the Chinese fight the mighty Japanese Empire….or
do it with a bit of “Indiana Jones” flair…serious, but not too serious.
(But please leave out the “Sky Captain” P-40s that turn into submarines.:D )
But be prepared for Angelina Jolie, Gwenn Paltrow or some starlet of the month (minute?) to be cast as a dedicated nurse or journalist.
After all, you don’t make a profit on a $200 million film by just selling seats to P-40 fans.

My money’s on Lindsay Lohan or a rehabilitated Paris Hilton

Hopefully, by doing a film on an American unit, this film won’t get the criticism that his last proposed project received here (not that anyone who was complaining ever saw a script…) that the “Yanks are trying to say they won the war single handedly”. :rolleyes:

Typical. No doubt Hollywood will probably be claiming that the Flying Tigers was some kind of exclusively American volunteer squadron and they’ll probably have them flying P40s instead of the Bentley engined Sopwith Camels they actually flew, and of course everyone knows that the Flying Tigers squadron was set up by Winston Churchill and manned by Terry Thomas, Douglas Bader and Queen Victoria.;)

(Anyone else remember ‘Tales of the Gold Monkey’, a US TV series about a former Flying Tiger who was invalided out and ended up flying a Grumman Goose around French Polynesia? That was a bit ‘Indiana Jones-y’ and quite cheesy but I have fond memories. There was the odd flashback to ‘flying tiger’ days and consequently some P40s and ‘Zeroes’ – the usual remodelled Harvards.)

A Flying Tigers film would be OK by me, but I know very little about the subject (My wife and I went to see ‘Flyboys’ the other day and before we went in she forbade me from giving a commentary 🙁 ). I admit I feel more comfortable about this than ‘The Few’, (not that I have any right to feel uncomfortable about that of course and as long as it’s well done and halfway accurate I say bring it on… As long as it’s not another ‘Objective Burma’…)

This is fantastic news…. are there any photographs yet?

On another note, do you think there is any way that Bodo would trade the aircraft with the FAA museum. Not that the aircraft doesn’t have significant historical context with Norway, and a rightful place in their amazing museum, but it would be lovely to see the aircraft at Yoevilton. In any event, I hope that the two museums can co-operate with the restoration of each collection’s example… it’s about time that this aircraft type was properly represented. It is a very significant find, and does justice to an underappreciated breed of aircraft… and aircrew for that matter.

Cheers,
Richard

Sorry, only just seen this. Obviously I can’t speak for the chaps at Bodo, but having met them and seen their enthusiasm, if not passion, for realising a complete and rebuilt Skua, I’d say the chance of this aircraft ending up at Yeovilton would be nil. However, there are other airframes out there though I doubt there are any in this condition. I’m also certain that plenty of liaison between the FAAM and the NLM Bodo will take place and both museums will end up richer in terms of Skua preservation than before.

Actually Stormbird, the Skua was never really state of the art – the Air Ministry considered it obsolescent before it had started squadron service (though that was as a fighter). It joined frontline squadrons at the end of 1938, after the Hurricane and Spitfire were well ensconced at Fighter Command. As with so many aircraft, particularly dive bombers, it needn’t have been a death trap if it had been used properly. Though self sealing tanks might have helped…

I believe the Skua is significant in that it was the Fleet Air Arm’s first monoplane, their first aircraft with retractable undercarriage and first enclosed cockpit aircraft, so a technological leap for the FAA.

Doe John Casson’s logbook exist somewhere?

As for the ace mentioned above, anyone who can become an ace against the Luftwaffe in an aircraft with a top speed of 225mph must have been very gifted. Who was he?

‘He’ was Lieutenant William Paulet Lucy DSM, am exceptional combat pilot and leader by all accounts. He helped draw up the Konigsberg raid and scored seven victories until his death on May 15th 1940. In typical fashion, he was attacking a Heinkel at very close range and his Skua was seen to blow up – probably hit in the non-self-sealing main fuel tank. He helped develop the Skua as a dive bomber and pioneered the steep diving attack on enemy aircraft to make use of the Skua’s high diving speed (compared to its level speed!).

If Casson’s log book does exist anywhere, I don’t know of it, which is a shame.

The Skua was indeed the FAA’s first ‘modern’ aircraft. One TAG described his first deck landing in one, claiming that the landing speed was similar to the flying speed of the Swordfish he had flown before! Considering what the aircrews had been flying into the late 30s – Ospreys, Sharks and so on – even the Skua was a bit of a hotrod!

I’ve been thinking about this issue of ‘significance’ and how it relates to the Skua, but having popped away for a think and come back, I see others have beaten me to it.

Quite apart from the sinking of the Konigsberg (which is significant on any measure), the Skua taught the FAA immense amounts about fighting a war in the land, sea and air in terms of fleet protection, close air support, combat air patrol over land and sea forces, and fighter direction at sea.

Because the Norwegian campaign was ultimately a failure, the successes within that campaign tend to go unnoticed. The Skua was the only allied aircraft which could provide close support to the troops on the ground until RAf fighters could finally operate from airstrips – and even then the first attempt saw all the Gladiators u/s in just over a day. With the alternatives to the RN at the time – basically the Sea Gladiator – standing patrols over the ground forces simply would not have been possible. And in the landings at Narvik, the Skua’s ability to provide close support from a carrier helped in the success of the first allied landings against a heavily defended shore. In addition, the Skua’s loiter and high diving speed meant it could provide meaningful CAP over the fleet in a way no other aircraft available at the time could have done. Rear Admiral Jameson remarked after the war that the Skuas ‘had saved the Ark Royal many times’.

And this is to say nothing of the dive bombing ability. The Skua was the only aircraft in the allied armoury that could provide highly accurate strikes on warships, transport ships, infrastructure and in one case, a Wehrmacht HQ. On several occasions, the Skuas succeeded where Bomber Command simply was not able to bomb small targets accurately enough. Long after the withdrawal, Skua squadrons kept up tip-and-run attacks on targets such as fuel storage tanks, merchant shipping and communications. Maybe not war winning stuff in itself, but it provided the knowledge of how this kind of war should be prosecuted. It also convinced the Admiralty that dive bombing was a worthwhile capability to maintain. I would venture to suggest that without the Skua paving the way, there would have been no Operation Tungsten.

It’s difficult to assess an aircraft’s significance but in the case of the FAA at the beginning of the war, the Skua allowed the FAA to do things that it could not do with any other aircraft. Sure, it had serious flaws, and much of its success was due to the skill and bravery of the crews, but had the Skua been cancelled in 1938 (as the Air Materiel Department wanted), I doubt the FAA would have become anything like the useful force it later emerged to be, and carrier fighters would have been restricted to keeping shadowers away from the battleships.

Yes indeed, the one bit that Skua restorers have been missing so far is the section of fuselage immediately aft of the wing, and the centre section – no longer, if this one can be raised. The chaps from Bodo are being bullish about it, and if anyone can do it, they can (along with seasoned Skua divers like Oyvind Lamo). There were no factory drawings in existence, and precious few photographs of this area, particularly the internals.

The condition of this machine is quite remarkable. The serial is a mystery for some reason, but we know that it was Lt Commander John Casson’s aircraft during the disastrous raid on the Scharnhorst on the 13th June 1940. Casson ditched on the surface of the fjord after the Skua was damaged by repeated attacks by a Messerschmitt Bf109, and the aircraft sank before it could be recovered. A full account of this raid, based on a reappraisal of evidence and the testimony of those who were there, will appear in ‘the other magazine’ next month. The engine is missing, but this is fairly common with Skuas, as the tubular steel structure that held the engine on the firewall tended to give way quite easily – the prototype had a shorter nose, but about 9″ was added to improve longitudinal stability and the tubular structure was the easiest thing to extend, but it did make it less robust.

I don’t know about L2940, but there were rumours that a partial reconstruction was being considered, but in such a way that retained the originality of the remaining wreckage which is, after all, much as Major Partridge and Lieutnant Bostock left it after setting the main tanks on fire and walking off towards Grotli 67 years ago.

It’s nice that the ‘Screwball’ is getting a bit of a reappraisal recently. It may not have been the best aircraft, but it did far more than might have been expected of it, and was better than many give it credit for.

The original Dambusters was a box office hit in the U. K. and the Commonwealth, but a dismal failure in the U.S. I am sure this will have figured somewhere in the funding of the remake.

Cheers

633

Has anyone considered that the US cinema audience might be more sophisticated than some give them credit for? ‘Flyboys’ was a dismal failure everywhere, after all.

II’ve always enjoyed him…however it’s taken some time to erase him playing Oscar Wilde from my memory:D .
Nothing homophobic in that, rather just strange to see him in that role after his comedy work.

Personally I thought he was born to be Wilde.

Sorry 😮